“There, his skills failed him-he had absorbed quite a bit of theory over the years, but little of the practicum. An oversight I shall have to remedy, in the future: It would have simplified matters had he been able to pick locks.

“But he could not. However, upon circling the building, he saw a set of fire-stairs, precariously attached and missing some of their treads, but for the most part sound.

“It took him two hours to round up what he needed, and he came near to breaking his neck getting up the metal steps in his office shoes, but he persisted, and made it to the roof, where he went along the row of skylights with a length of pipe. On the fourth such window, he found me.”

He described how Sosa, terrified by his own audacity, had rescued him. “I then told him to keep back when I went to confront Gunderson, but the poor fellow seemed to think he was Allen Quatermain and would not leave me. When Gunderson turned and saw us, an old man and a milksop, of course he pulled his gun. I had little choice but to shoot him. And to my irritation, he was inconsiderate enough to die before he could tell me who had sent him.

“But with him he had a parcel, the contents of which were most intriguing. My shoes and belt were there, and a clean shirt-not one of mine, but in my size. Also a clothes’ brush, razor, and bottle of water, indicating that he intended to render me more or less presentable. But the contents of a large envelope were the most suggestive of all: my note-case, into which a photograph of a rather attractive and scantily clad female had been inserted; a card for a night-club called The Pink Pagoda; a torn-off section of the London map showing the area about The Pink Pagoda, with an X drawn across a nearby alley; the forms necessary for a London mortuary to conduct a burial; and the autopsy for a man matching my size and general description, signed by an out-of-town pathologist, and dated the following day.

“Poor Mr Sosa, the events of that afternoon nearly did him in. Flying bullets and the presence of a dead man were bad enough, but then I made him wait there with me until dark-hoping that Gunderson’s boss, or at least a colleague, might come looking for him, which they did not-because in my weakened condition I could not manhandle Gunderson’s body down to the mortuary van by myself. And after that, he had to drive, then help me dump the body. I think by this time his mind had gone numb, because he did not even protest when I told him we needed to wait until the police had showed up, before carrying out the charade that Gunderson’s employer had intended for me.

“I had found a flask of gin in the glove compartment of the van, and made my secretary take a swallow to steady his nerves. And when the time came, he flashed his identity at the police with what appeared to be bored panache, but was, in fact, sheer terror. Then we snatched the body from out of their hands and delivered it, with the papers, to the funeral home.

“After that, I had Sosa drop me at the Angel Court entrance, and I ordered him to go to an hotel I knew near Maidenhead, and check in under an assumed name. I also ordered him to drink the remainder of the gin and go immediately to bed-he is a teetotaller, but I expected it might be a choice between alcohol and a complete breakdown, and thought the effect of drink would be simpler to deal with.”

With that, Mycroft picked up the final biscuit and sat back, as if his tale was at its end.

“So you’ve been here since Wednesday?” I prompted.

“I have a long-standing arrangement with Mrs Melas, that I might use her upstairs flat if ever I needed a retreat. She even came to see if I might be here, while I was in my prison-she left a note on the desk for me, asking that I get into touch. Fortunately, she hasn’t been back since.”

“She believed the reports of your death, as we did. I did,” I corrected myself, although Holmes’ claims to the contrary were not entirely convincing.

Mycroft winced. “Yes, I feared the report would trouble you. There was little I could do. Any public message-board such as the agony column was sure to be watched. As I said, my opponent has a remarkably subtle mind.”

That gave me pause, to think that the messages Holmes and I had posted to each other might have been not only noticed, but understood. However, one would also have had to know where the bolt-holes were to trace us to them, and there this faceless opponent had met his limits.

“I knew you would return to London, once you had dealt with Brothers. With luck, you would even find me before I began to eat Mrs Melas’ leather chair. But you say that Brothers is not dead. How do you intend to find him?”

Brothers be damned, I thought, and interrupted. “Did you send Mr Sosa away?”

“On Thursday, it must have been,” Holmes noted. “Once he’d brought you the morning papers.”

“And food. Yes, I sent him to the country with his mother, and had him get into touch with your Mrs Hudson and my own Mrs Cowper. We have a wide number of acquaintances at the moment who are taking in distant scenery.”

Poor Mrs Hudson, banished yet again for her own good. At least Dr Watson was out of it this time.

“We cannot afford any more hostages to fortune,” Holmes agreed.

“That was my thought. However, I had not suspected that Mr Sosa was made of such stern stuff. He returned to St James’s Square at mid-day on Thursday, where I had agreed to be available to him, were he to want me, and brought me a pair of Gladstone bags stuffed with edibles and the news. However, he was badly shaken: That morning he had decided that he could scarcely spend the day in the same shirt he had worn the day previous, and went home to pack a valise. There he found signs of a most expert break-in and the insinuation of several pieces of incriminating evidence amongst his things. He gathered his mother and fled; the two of them were in the mortuary van with her cat and canary. I gave him strict orders to abandon the stolen motor and take her away for at least two weeks. After the invasion of his home, I believe he will obey me. I only hope I can talk him into returning to my employ, once this is over.”

“Good,” Holmes said to his brother. “Tell me, what do you propose to do about your faceless opponent?”

“Now that I have you, I’d thought-”

“Wait,” I said. Damian was lodged in Holland somewhere and Javitz was protecting Estelle-but if our opponent was all-knowing, there remained one member of our party to consider: “Goodman.”

The man attached to that name gave a snort and sat upright on the divan, blinking against the light. I said, “That is your family’s estate, in Cumbria, where you live?”

“My… yes.”

“You could be traced from there?”

He shrugged, to indicate its remote possibility. I turned to Holmes.

“If our opponent has figured out who Goodman is, and if he’s desperate enough, he could use them-the family is away, fortunately, but the servants are there, and vulnerable.”

Goodman snorted again, this time a sound of derision. “That family? Were he sane, a threat to a mere servant would not bend a son of the family. But mad? One cannot manipulate a madman. No sensible man would try.”

With that, he turned over on the divan and went back to sleep.

We three looked at each other, and admitted the wisdom of the fool’s pronouncement.

“You were saying, Mycroft?” Holmes asked.

“I was saying, with your assistance, I believe we might revive the trap I had been constructing before Mr Brothers stumbled into our lives. There may be fewer of us than I had anticipated. However, I believe we can adapt it to our reduced numbers.”

The conversation that followed led us nearly to dawn, and the plan Mycroft laid and Holmes and I amended was a good one: simple, solid, and requiring little luck to succeed. Our opponent might not realise yet that Mycroft was alive, but he must be aware that Gunderson was missing. It was unfortunate that Mycroft had lacked the personal stamina, or the reliable manpower, to set watch over the warehouse. Nonetheless, the combination of blood on the floor, bullets in the walls, and a broken sky-light would surely put the most phlegmatic of villains in a state of panic.